Half of prisoners die of starvation in Zimbabwe jails

More than half of the prisoners in Zimbabwe's maximum security jail have died of starvation or disease in the last year, it emerged yesterday.

By Peta Thornycroft in Harare

6:00AM BST 19 May 2009

The death rate inside Chikurubi prison, about 12 miles east of Harare, compares with the worst jails in history, according to the Standard, an independent weekly newspaper.

Of the 1,300 inmates, at least 700 have died in revolting conditions. Six were found dead in their filthy cells yesterday alone. About the same number died last weekend.

Some 100 bodies, many of them mutilated by rats, are stacked up in the prison mortuary. If they are unclaimed, they will be buried as paupers in prison grounds.

The collapse of Zimbabwe's economy and of the state itself has crippled the prison system, leaving thousands of inmates with scarcely any food. Any provision of medical care has also collapsed, leaving prisoners to die of starvation and disease.

Chikurubi packs about 30 inmates into cells designed for only 10. An off-duty warder confirmed the figure of 700 dead and said the mortality rate in other prisons was probably similar.

"It's the same at all the rest of the prisons around the country," he said. "We often find six died at a time. A lot have Aids, but die quickly because they don't have enough food."

Since Zimbabwe's new coalition government took office in February, the International Committee of the Red Cross has begun improving prison conditions, installing a borehole in Chikurubi two months ago.

The death rate has recently fallen, but prisoners still succumb almost every day. Between November and January, 327 deaths were recorded at Chikurubi - almost a quarter of all the inmates.

Major-General Paradzai Zimondi, the commissioner of prisons, is in President Robert Mugabe's inner circle. "He has never been to see what is going on in Chikurubi" said the warder. "He doesn't care."